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We all witness, in advertising and on supermarket shelves, the fierce competition for our food dollars. In this engrossing expos©♭, Marion Nestle goes behind the scenes to reveal how the competition really works and how it affects our health. The abundance of food in the United States--enough calories to meet the needs of every man, woman, and child twice over--has a downside. Our over-efficient food industry must do everything possible to persuade people to eat more--more food, more often, and in larger portions--no matter what it does to waistlines or well-being. Like manufacturing cigarettes or building weapons, making food is big business. Food companies in 2000 generated nearly 9 00 billion in sales. They have stakeholders to please, shareholders to satisfy, and government regulations to deal with. It is nevertheless shocking to learn precisely how food companies lobby officials, co-opt experts, and expand sales by marketing to children, members of minority groups, and people in developing countries. We learn that the food industry plays politics as well as or better than other industries, not least because so much of its activity takes place outside the public view. Editor of the 1988 Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health, Nestle is uniquely qualified to lead us through the maze of food industry interests and influences. She vividly illustrates food politics in action: watered-down government dietary advice, schools pushing soft drinks, diet supplements promoted as if they were First Amendment rights. When it comes to the mass production and consumption of food, strategic decisions are driven by economics--not science, not common sense, and certainly not health. No wonder most of us are thoroughly confused about what to eat to stay healthy.An accessible and balanced account, Food Politics will forever change the way we respond to food industry marketing practices. By explaining how much the food industry influences government nutrition policies and how cleverly it links its interests to those of nutrition experts, this path-breaking book helps us understand more clearly than ever before what we eat and why.… (more)
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I'm afraid that I'm going to be rather more cynical about food and nutritional information, now that this book has discussed how little those policies take the public good into account, compared with how much lobbying, lawsuits, and intimidation affect them. Also, Food Politics was published in 2002 - I would be happy to see a "Food Politics - Part 2" that discusses the meat/dairy industry's reaction to Atkins and South Beach and the like, as well as the strong lobbying by the corn industry over HFCS. Nestle ends with the point that we as consumers ought to be more informed about our food, and "vote with our forks" against some of the corruption that has tainted nutritional information.
vested intests are and wide. many professional organizations with dubious conflict of interest policies.
food processors can
makes me appreciate the worlds healthiest foods book even more!!!!!
who you going to trust!!